Ghost River (15 page)

‘And what happened when you rang?' Ren asked.

Tallboy straightened his jacket and ran his hand through his hair like he was about to make an important speech. ‘We caught up some time we missed. She told me I have new blood. A grandson. Maybe I want to see him, she said. We been on the phone more times since. I'm on the bus to where she is. Tomorrow. Welfare helped me with a ticket. I got a suit coat and clean shirt to collect. Haven't had a drink in three days. I'm ready.'

‘Did you tell her you already got a girl of your own, the white lady?' Tiny needled him again.

‘Get fucked,' Tallboy snapped. ‘You're only jealous.'

Tex tried his best to sit up in his chair. He glared at Tiny until the fat man looked away. Tallboy took a step forward and shook hands with Sonny. ‘I'm happy that you boys come by the camp tonight. Both of you is good boys. You been good friends to us.' He shook Ren's hand and held on to it. ‘I got to tell you, this grog is no fun. It's made me poor in the head for a long time. You stay away from the drink.'

Tallboy looked down at Tex, who'd fallen asleep. ‘I need a favour from you boys. Once I'm gone you call in on Texas for me. I won't be back. Not ever.'

‘We will. We always will,' Ren promised.

Tallboy nodded towards Cold Can. ‘There are some who care for him like a true brother. Cold Can is up for that. Always been the same way. But others,' he raised his voice to be sure Big Tiny heard him, ‘give a fuck bout no one but themselves.'

As the boys walked away from the camp, Ren stopped, turned around and looked at Tallboy's long shadow dancing in front of the fire.

‘Take care of yourself,' Ren shouted.

Tallboy lifted a hand and waved back.

The boys struggled climbing the bank. They stopped and looked through the compound fence again. The bulldozers were eating their way into the earth. A canyon was working its way to the river.

‘Won't be long before there's nothing left for us,' Ren said.

‘Remember what Rory said? We shouldn't give up without a fight. That's exactly what we done. Give up already.' Sonny picked up a stone and threw it over the fence. ‘I got to go out with Rory tonight. Into the city to some pub.'

‘What for?'

‘Since he come home sick from the races, he's been complaining about his guts. He's taking me to meet the gateman from the racetrack. He ticks off the emus on race days. Rory says he needs to endorse me, let the gateman see my face in case I need to cover for him any time.'

‘Does he think he's gonna get real sick?'

‘Not sure. He says it's all about insurance.'

Ren lay on his bed that night thinking about how poorly Tex had looked, and what Tallboy had said about the drink being no good for him any longer. He understood for the first time that while the river men enjoyed an adventure, their lives could also be miserable, with no warm bed to sleep in on cold nights, no family to take care of them, and the grog killing their bodies. He opened his window, looked up at the clear night sky and remembered reading in a science book that some of the stars, glowing millions of miles away, had been dead a long time.

The thought frightened him so deeply he was about to close the window and jump back into bed when he noticed a soft square glow on the roof above the kitchen of Reverend Beck's house. He poked his head out of his window and saw that Della's bedroom light was on. He hopped out of his window, quietly crawled across Sonny's kitchen roof and perched underneath her window. He slowly raised his head until he could see into her bedroom. She was sitting at a dresser, with her back to the window, brushing her hair in a mirror. It was longer than he would have expected, almost reaching her waist. He could see a large photograph in a frame on the wall next to the dresser and recognised the black face of the Messenger Divine. Standing next to him were Reverend Beck and his wife. They were years younger. Della leaned forward, stared into the mirror and studied her face. Her own and Ren's eyes met. He ducked under the ledge and tried to scramble away.

The window opened and Della called him back. ‘Don't go. Please.'

She moved her chair from the dresser to the window. Ren leaned against the sill, standing on the roof. She asked him where he'd been that day, and he told her about the hunt for the tunnels, finding the statue of Mary, and the deep hole he and Sonny had seen on the way home being gouged by the machines. He also told her how angry it made him feel that anyone would want to do harm to the river. As she leaned forward and listened, Ren looked more closely at the dark rings under her eyes. She also had a deep scratch across one cheek.

‘Are you okay?' he asked.

Della raised a hand to her face. ‘Why do you care?' she answered, defensively.

‘I don't know. I feel sorry …'

Della cut him off with a sharp look that surprised him.

‘My father is doing important work, and everything he does, bringing the church here, he has done at the request of the Messenger and for his family.
We
sometimes feel sorry for you people. Outsiders.'

‘You haven't been hurt?'

‘Of course not. Don't be silly.'

Hearing footsteps on the stairway outside her door, she turned her head away from Ren. ‘You have to leave now. That will be my father coming to pray with me.'

Ren lay awake in bed until the early hours of the morning, thinking about what Della had said. She hadn't seemed troubled at all, which did nothing to explain the scratch on her face. He eventually fell asleep but woke sometime later, thinking he'd heard a loud crash in the distance. The sounds of dogs barking echoed across the neighbourhood. A little later, Ren heard a police siren. It grew louder as it passed the house then quietened and stopped as he fell back to sleep.

CHAPTER 12

Ren woke the next morning, believing he'd dreamed about the police siren, that he and Sonny had found themselves in some sort of trouble and had been chased. It wasn't until he left the house later that he found out that police were swarming over the compound. He walked to the end of the lane and noticed one of the RTA workers talking to a uniformed policeman. A detective was leaning against a car with one hand in his pocket and the other smoking a cigarette. It was the infamous Foy.

Mick O'Reagan, the milkman, was walking along the street reading from a piece of paper in his hands. He didn't see Ren until he was almost on top of him.

‘What's going on down there with the coppers? Ren asked.

‘Looks like someone has broken in. The fence has fallen over on the far side of the yard and one of the machines is fucked. On its side in the dirt. Serve them right. Messing with the earth that way. Can only be trouble in that.'

Mick waved the piece of paper in his hand. ‘Got a letter here from my boy. I snuck out of the house with it when I spotted the postmark. Thought it might be bad news and I didn't want the wife getting hold of it first. But it's good news.' He smiled. ‘Good news.'

Ren walked back to Sonny's place to tell him about the break-in at the compound, but when he knocked at Sonny's door a woman opened it. It was Rory's girlfriend. She reminded Ren of Olive Oil. He couldn't look at her without thinking what Sonny had said to him about her and Rory having sex.

‘Sonny here?' he asked, looking down at the doorstep.

‘Nope. Heard him tell Rory he was off to the paper shop. Shoots through soon as I show up. The kid doesn't like me.' She shrugged. ‘He only come in for breakfast and then pissed off again.'

Ren walked around to the shop and asked Brixey if Sonny was around. Brixey pointed to the back room. ‘He's just about living here. I'm thinking of asking him for rent.'

Spike was repairing the back wheel of an upturned bike and Sonny was counting a tray of five cent pieces.

‘You ready, Spike?' Sonny asked.

Spike spat in his hands and rubbed them together as if he were about to lift a three hundred pound barbell.

‘Ready.'

Sonny spilled two handfuls of coins onto the worn and scarred counting board. Spike sat down opposite him, watching closely as Sonny spread the coins. ‘Okay, Spike. How many are there?'

Spike ran his eyes over the coins for a few seconds, no longer. ‘Forty-two. That's two dollars and ten cents.'

‘Ren, you count them for me,' Sonny asked, ‘while I stack the papers.'

Ren counted the coins, to the exact total Spike had announced. ‘How'd you do that?' Ren asked.

Spike shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘Just can.'

‘It's not all he can do,' Sonny said. He threw Ren a dog-eared copy of the
Victorian Football League Almanac.
‘Pick any game from that book and ask him the scores. Ask the crowd numbers if you like.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘I'll bet all these five cent pieces that it's not.'

Ren flipped through the book and settled on round one, 1927. ‘Okay, Spike, can you give me the scores for any of the games?'

‘Give you all of them.'

Spike closed his eyes and rattled off the points for each game, quarter by quarter, as if he was reading them from a scoreboard. Although he couldn't see how Spike could have tricked him, Ren was convinced he must have. He picked another year and round. Spike answered correctly again. Ren was impressed.

‘How'd you do that? That's fucken brilliant, Spike. You should be on the TV.'

‘As long as the questions are about football,' Sonny said. ‘Try telling him what day is it, Spike.'

‘Fuck off, Sonny, I know the day.'

Sonny wouldn't stop teasing him. He poked a finger against the side of Spike's head. ‘When they put that plate in your head, you got the wrong one, I reckon. I'd bet all of them coins on the tray that you can't tell us when you were born. The date.' He pushed Spike in the chest and Spike pushed back, just as hard. Sonny pushed him again. ‘Come on, tell us your birth date, retard.'

‘Don't call him that, Sonny. Leave him be,' Ren said.

‘Mind your fucken business,' Sonny snapped.

‘What's up with you? Leave Spike alone.'

Before Sonny could say another word Spike threw a punch at him, hitting him square on the nose. Sonny fell to the ground, crashing into bikes and prams. Spike stood over him. ‘Don't call me a retard,' he screamed, ‘or I'll punch you again.'

‘You are a fucken retard.'

Spike dropped his knees into Sonny's chest and grabbed him by the throat. Brixey heard the commotion from the shop and came running into the back room. He dragged Spike off Sonny and threw him across the room. Sonny sat up. His nose was bleeding.

‘What are you doing, Sonny?' Brixey demanded. ‘Having a go at him like that. You leave the boy alone.' He turned to Spike. ‘And you, out of here. Go and keep an eye on the shop.'

Sonny wiped the blood from his nose onto his shirtsleeve. ‘It was him,' Sonny lied. ‘Look what he done to me.'

‘Fucken bullshit.' Brixey looked angry. ‘Spike wouldn't hit anyone. Not without good reason. You treat him different than any other kid in the shop and you can fuck off out of here, Sonny. You pull your head in or there's no job here for you. And you apologise to him before you leave the shop. Or don't come back.'

Sonny was lucky that Brixey had come into the back room, Ren thought. If he hadn't, Spike would have near killed him. He waited until Sonny had cleaned his nose under the tap in the yard before breaking the news to him.

‘I need to tell you something.'

‘That Spike's not a retard? It's okay, Ren, Brixey already let me know.'

‘I just saw the police at the compound. Tons of them.'

Sonny dried his face with a dirty face washer and looked at his nose in the mirror. ‘Don't look like it's broken. It was a lucky punch.'

It was no lucky punch and both boys knew it.

‘Did you hear what I just said?' Ren was losing his patience. ‘The coppers are all over the compound. Someone's got in there and wrecked one of the machines. You know something about that?'

‘I know nothing.' He wiped his nose again. ‘I got to shoot through. Rory wants me to take home a
Best Bets
for him. Talk to you later.'

But Sonny wouldn't talk about it. At the newsstand that afternoon he buried his head in a comic book and ignored Ren's questions about the break-in. After work, Brixey locked the shop door and sat Sonny on a stool behind the counter. Ren waited in the street, watching them through the window, expecting that Brixey was going to rip into him. He didn't seem to be yelling at Sonny at all. Brixey rested an arm on Sonny's shoulder as he spoke. When he finished, Sonny nodded his head and they shook hands.

Spike had gone off to the fish and chip shop. He came back with a parcel of steaming potato cakes, and was sharing them with Ren when Sonny walked out of the shop and unlatched the side gate to retrieve his bike.

‘Hey, Sonny,' Spike called out to him. ‘I got a dozen potato cakes here. I reckon you might be hungry. They have vinegar on them.'

He offered the steaming parcel to Sonny, who hesitated before dipping his hand into the parcel, pulling out a potato cake and taking a bite. ‘Potato cakes are the best feed ever. Thanks, Spike.'

Spike bit into his own half-eaten potato cake. ‘I got no hard feelings for you, Sonny,' Spike said.

‘Me either,' Sonny said. ‘It was my fault, Spike. Shouldn't have used that word about you. I'm really sorry.'

Sonny rubbed a finger across the tip of his swollen nose. ‘That was a good punch you threw, Spike.'

‘Don't matter. I don't feel good about it, hitting you.'

A police car slowly passed by on the opposite side of the road, did a U-turn and pulled into the gutter next to the boys. Ren could see Detective Foy sitting in the front passenger seat. He wound down the window, spat into the gutter, reached over his seat and opened the back door. He wore a blunt nose and had bull terrier eyes.

‘Brewer,' he called to Sonny.

Sonny took another bite out of his potato cake and ignored Foy.

‘Brewer!' he barked. ‘Get in the back.'

Sonny wasn't scared of the police like most kids were, even this one. He looked straight at Foy and refused to move. The detective jumped out of the car and fingered Sonny in the chest. ‘We're having a word in the car here, or me and my driver are taking you back to the station for a cooking. Do what you're told, or you can burn. Your decision.'

Sonny took the last bite of his potato cake, buried his hands in his pockets and hopped in the back seat.

Foy nodded at Ren. ‘You too, girlie. Keep your boyfriend company.'

Ren hesitated. He thought about doing a runner but Foy was onto him. Foy smiled, as if there was something he admired in the boy. ‘Don't be a silly cunt. I'm giving you two seconds.'

Sonny slid across the seat and made room for Ren, who left the door open, just in case he was brave enough to change his mind. Spike waited until Foy was back in the car himself before offering Sonny and Ren another potato cake each. ‘I'm full up. I can't eat them all.'

Foy looked up at Spike like he wanted to snap his neck. ‘Fuck off, you nutter, before I have your head caved in for a second time.'

‘I'm going to get my boss,' Spike said. ‘Brixey won't be happy bout this.'

‘Get who the fuck you like. But piss off before I turn this show into a trio.'

Foy ordered the driver to turn the inside light on. He showed the boys a fist. It was scarred and deformed by calcified knuckles, the broken bones of past assaults. The copper in the driver's seat rested his hands on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead, along the narrow road that led away from the suburb. Foy relaxed his hand and looked closely at Sonny's swollen nose.

‘Where'd you get the war wound?'

‘Had a fight with the kid just here with the potato cakes.'

‘That fucken mental case?' Foy laughed out loud. ‘Sonny, isn't it? I heard you had a bit of go in you, but you must be weak as piss to let him stand over you.'

Sonny glared at him and said nothing.

‘Enough playing around. Let's get on with business. Where were you last night, Sonny?' Foy demanded, his light-hearted expression instantly shifting.

Sonny pointed to Ren without hesitation. ‘I was at my mate's place.'

‘Of course.' Foy smiled. He was certain Sonny was lying to him.

‘Yep. He was at my place. Watching TV,' Ren said.

Foy laughed softly and didn't seem too disappointed in the game the boys were playing with him. He rested a hand on Sonny's knee. ‘You know, I've been watching you for a while now, Sonny.' He ran the hand along Sonny's thigh. ‘Admiring you from a distance.'

Sonny shifted in his seat. Foy's hand followed him. ‘Some of you arseholes move up the ranks nice and slow. Start with thieving from the milk bar, maybe a couple of larcenies along the way, then the Boys Home. But you, Sonny, you might have come from nowhere straight into the deep end, the damage you did last night. No one else would have picked you. But I did. First time I saw you.' He suddenly snatched at the crutch of Sonny's pants. ‘Time's come for us to get to know each other better.'

Foy squeezed Sonny's balls together. He fell forward in agony, unable to breathe. ‘Let me tell you, cunt, you're in big trouble. And I don't mean time away at them holiday farms the Salvos run where you get your dick sucked by some poor kid inside for no reason except his family don't want him. They'll do anything for love, them kids. But you, Sonny, you're off to some other place. And you won't be on the receiving end.'

Foy released his hand from Sonny's crutch and turned to the driver. ‘Should we take him back to the station? Or break him in here?'

The driver didn't as much as blink.

‘The mischief you got up to last night, Sonny, has won you all my attention. What we have to work out now is what I'm going to do with you. So, let's get a start. Did you break in to that yard on your own? Or was fucken Cinderella here with you?'

‘Like I said,' Sonny answered, his voice breaking apart, ‘I was with him, watching TV.'

Foy took his hand off Sonny's thigh and moved it across to Ren's knee. ‘You know who I am, don't you? You've lived around this way all your life. Would have heard all about me.' He grinned. ‘And I know you. Your mother, Loretta, she's from one of the old families, the Renwick mob. They go way back. Tough as nails, all of them. You like them?'

Ren was shocked that Foy knew him at all.

‘Don't look so surprised. I know every inch of these streets and everyone that walks them. You seem to be a clever kid. Smart enough to know I hate fucken liars. I hate kids just as much, but I'd be wasting all my energy putting time into breaking you. You might as well be an altar boy. But this one, Sonny, we have a future together and I need to start on top. Give him a good fucking.'

He patted Ren softly on the calf. ‘Now, you're about to tell me the truth. What did young Sonny get up to last night?'

Ren was so scared of Foy he was about to piss himself. ‘He was with me, watching TV,' he answered, his bottom lip quivering.

‘You stick fat, you two.' Foy smiled. ‘I'll give you that. And loyalty is rare around here. The local crims give each other up every other day.' He clicked his fingers together. ‘Pass me the bag,' he ordered the other policeman.

The driver reached down between the front seats and pulled out a brown paper bag. He handed it to Foy, who went on talking while he dipped a hand inside. ‘Tell me, where the fuck did you learn to drive a bulldozer, Brewer? You practise stealing cars? You should have taken proper lessons. Putting that machine through the fence, into a ditch. They're still down there, lifting it out with a crane.'